No one could have predicted that 2020 would have shaped up to be a year of uncertainty, hopelessness, and sadness. Yet, for many students, teachers, and leaders, dreams vanished, learning shifted, and education was fundamentally altered. We reflect on the changes that were made and strive to move forward to reimagine education for all learners. Creativity, adaptivity, perseverance, and resiliency are the building blocks for moving forward. Join this educational series of four short modules, which provide helpful videos, tools, and strategies as we uncover how to thrive in a new world of teaching and learning.
DEVELOPED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE)
Arts education provides an opportunity to engage students in meaningful learning opportunities that unlock their creativity and passion, support their social-emotional well-being, and positively impact student achievement. With partner contributions from Turnaround Arts CA and the California Arts Project, the June edition of the CCEE Connection features resources, strategies, and tools to support arts integration!
Malissa Shriver, Co-founder & Board Chair, Turnaround Arts CA
Barbara Palley, Director of Program and Strategy, Turnaround Arts CA
The arts create the pathways to healing and learning that students from communities greatly impacted by the pandemic and racial injustice need right now. Yet, students who could benefit from the arts the most, including students with special needs and of low socioeconomic status, get it the least. As schools reopen this summer and fall, let’s not return to the old normal that reinforces inequitable access to the arts.
The arts aren’t enrichment—they are education. Drawing from decades of research, we know that learning is at once cognitive, social, emotional, and cultural. Arts in schools create pathways to learning through relationship building, joy, exploration, and self-direction (Darling-Hammond, 2021; CCEE Summer of Joy, 2021). The Visual and Performing Arts are not only standards-based content areas of their own right, but also tools that may be used to meet key priorities across the school site.
At Turnaround Arts: California, we partner with schools in historically marginalized communities across the state to build the capacity of teachers and principals in leveraging the arts to create equity and access for all students and to support whole-school transformation. Prior to and during the pandemic, our 24 partnering elementary and middle schools have not only sustained the arts in their schools, but have creatively innovated to expand their use with wonderful results.
The Arts Motivate Student-Driven Conversation – Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) help classroom teachers facilitate open-ended conversations among students about works of art. By fostering collaborative, inclusive, community-building dialogue that transcends distance, VTS opens pathways to support speaking, listening, and English language development in ways that are culturally responsive, socially inclusive, and visually stimulating. Teachers who integrated VTS in their instruction observed higher rates of participation in distance learning, as students turned on their cameras or added a FlipGrid video to voice their opinions about the work of art. Building off their peers’ observations and interpretations, students actively engaged in and contributed to discussions with their own personal connections, claims, and evidence. Middle school students working with visiting spoken word artists from Get Lit Words Ignite also had the opportunity to find their own voice. Students adopted a poem of their own choosing from the literary canon, and then wrote and performed original response pieces to the classics. Through art, students who have never performed or written poetry before, made personal connections between literature and present-day cultural and social issues that were important to them.
The Arts Create Multiple Entry Points to Learning – Integrating the arts into core curriculum aligns with neuroscientific research and culturally responsive approaches to provide multiple modalities for students to introduce and manipulate concepts to demonstrate understanding. For example, teachers might ask students to create facial expressions and body gestures to represent the emotions of a particular character from literature, as they learn new vocabulary to describe those emotions. Other students may use digital tools to compose simple music that represents the mood of a particular book or chapter. When classroom teachers utilize the arts across their curriculum, they report students engage and learn in ways that they wouldn’t otherwise.
The Arts Support Social Emotional Learning – Partnering with guidance counselors, art specialists, and classroom teachers to integrate the arts schoolwide can create outlets for student expression, stress and anxiety reduction, and relationship building. The arts provide important nonverbal pathways for expression, calming the “fight or flight” mode for students experiencing trauma. Some classroom teachers begin each day with art in their virtual classrooms, engaging students in collaborative drawing or dance challenges to activate their participation and to create a safe space for experimentation. UCLArts & Healing’s Beat the Odds program offers another opportunity to integrate the arts to support students’ social-emotional well-being. This evidence-based program utilizes drumming circles to build students’ core strengths, such as focusing, listening, collaborating, building trust, expressing empathy and gratitude, and managing stress/anger. Turnaround Arts: California partner schools participated in the Cope & Hope Photo Project, which utilizes photography to express how school community members are coping during the pandemic and their hopes for school in the future.
The Arts Reimagine Family Engagement – Synchronous and asynchronous arts-based family engagement activities can strengthen home/school relationships and support families during this difficult time. Schools found that despite Zoom fatigue, families tuned in for activities to build positive emotions, relieve stress, and share joy with their children through the arts. Some examples include take-home art kits, literacy-supporting early childhood music classes with San Diego Youth Symphony, family art, or Latin dance nights with P.S. ARTS.
The results of this work are tangible. One of our partner schools in Marina, CA conducted a YouthTruth survey and found that compared to other schools in their district and county, students in this school reported higher rates of engagement and interest in their school work, along with stronger connections with their teachers and classmates. Another partner school in Los Angeles County is seeing higher rates of academic performance compared to other schools in the area. Since we began this work in 2014, we have seen these positive trends across our partner schools, but to see them over the past year is a true testament to the power of the arts.
If the past year has taught us anything, it’s that creativity is an essential skill that helps us innovate, adapt, and connect. We also know that principals, teachers, students, and families in school communities across the state have a vast wealth of knowledge, cultural assets, as well as the motivation to create new ways of teaching and learning that can support the development of the whole child. By leveraging the arts, we can empower the entire school community to imagine and create better learning environments for our young people—ones that are inclusive, joyful, rigorous, and engaging.
Kristine Alexander, Executive Director, The California Arts Project
Students, educators, and families alike wish for this summer to be filled with memory-making, joyful arts experiences that offer the foundation needed to reengage students and prepare us for the coming year. By thoughtfully and strategically leveraging available resources, educators can design a student-centered, standards-based approach to arts instruction that equitably attends to social and emotional considerations. The joy of arts learning offers a summer infused with creative possibilities!
Students thrive when learning environments nurture respectful relationships and link learning to the learner. Students engage in the learning process when the content harnesses their curiosity, connects to their lives, and amplifies their voice. These are the environments of arts learning. The arts disciplines (dance, media arts, music, theatre, and visual arts) provide creative opportunities for students to foster positive social-emotional relationships, connect with their teachers and peers, and actively engage in the artistic processes of creating, performing/presenting/producing, responding, and connecting. These cognitive and physical actions of arts learning promote students’ artistic literacy and skill development. Educators’ careful attention to the creative processes, content area standards, learning environments, and students’ needs when planning summer arts instruction sets the foundation for students to thrive.
The statewide network of The California Arts Project (TCAP) supports educators in designing such instruction, summer or year-round. By tapping into these standards-based resources, student interests, and their own imagination, educators are equipped to design a memory-making summer of powerful and transformative arts learning to usher in the new school year.
California has developed guidance resources to support students’ artistic literacy development and advance social-emotional learning. The new 2020 California Arts Education Framework’s core themes of equity, access, and inclusion articulate a contemporary vision for arts learning that conveys the vital role arts education has in students’ artistic literacy, cognitive, social, cultural, and emotional development. The 2019 California Arts Education Standards encompass authentic arts processes and approaches in each arts discipline to promote students’ artistic literacy development and social and emotional growth. These discipline-specific, process-oriented, grade-appropriate, and inquiry-based standards build students’ capacities in developing social and emotional connections, such as setting and achieving positive goals, feeling and showing empathy for others, building relationships, understanding and managing of emotions, and developing ethical responsibility. Educators can find additional social and emotional learning resources on the California Department of Education webpage.
This three-part series outlines how educational leaders can empower students, teachers, and administrators to make dramatic improvements in student learning, behavior, and attendance. In these sessions, participants will learn about the core competencies of “Equity and Excellence Schools” and will explore equitable teaching practices to meet the needs of diverse learners.
PRESENTER
Dr. Douglas Reeves, Founder, Creative Leadership Solutions
WHAT EDUCATORS AND SCHOOL LEADERS CAN DO NOW TO ACCELERATE LEARNING
Many schools are making decisive actions to accelerate learning, improve assessments, increase attendance, and better engage students. This session will examine effective teacher and leadership actions that have the greatest impact on student achievement.
The global pandemic will continue to affect schools long after schools re-open. Changes will be required in schedules, student support, faculty support, state standards, and assessments – and all of these changes will be taking place at a time when educators and school leaders are desperately seeking a return to normal. This session will introduce the new model of change leadership, which requires leaders to try, test, and improve new strategies within very short periods of time.
The global pandemic has left in its wake traumatized students, families, and educators, and fear has been the dominant emotion. The essence of fearless schools is the building of psychologically safe environments where students and educators can learn together, make mistakes with transparency, learn from those mistakes, and engage in consistent innovation, experimentation, and learning. This session will explore how fearless schools can meet these psychological needs and serve as the foundation for resilience for the students and communities they serve.
The global pandemic has left in its wake traumatized students, families, and educators and fear has been the dominant emotion. The essence of fearless schools is the building of psychologically safe environments where students and educators can learn together, make mistakes with transparency, learn from those mistakes, and engage in consistent innovation, experimentation, and learning. In this session, participants will 1) learn about the impact of psychological safety on learning and leadership, 2) identify the barriers to psychological safety and fearless schools, 3) evaluate alternative practices that lead to or detract from fearless schools, and 4) apply the learning to their individual contexts.
PRESENTER
Dr. Douglas Reeves, Founder, Creative Leadership Solutions
We close our two-part series on systems change through the creation of compassionate systems with Dr. Michelle Perrenoud from Los Angeles County Office of Education. Dr. Perrenoud shares the importance of personal change and the revaluation of existing artifacts and mindsets to facilitate larger systems change.
Click here to watch episode 25 of the Leading Forward Podcast with Dr. Peter Senge.
SPEAKER
Dr. Michelle Perrenoud, Los Angeles County Office of Education
This summer is more important than ever to help students begin to recover from the learning loss, isolation, and trauma of the past year. Designed for K-12 administrators, educators, and community partners, the Summer Game Plan series provides strategies to navigate challenges in planning summer learning programs, resources to aid your planning, and the latest research and guidance from nationally recognized experts.
OFFERED IN COLLABORATION WITH
Partnership for Children & Youth
SUMMER RESEARCH, PRACTICE, & FUNDING: FOUNDATIONS FOR SUMMER PLANNING
This webinar covers the latest national research on strategies and practices that contribute to impactful summer programs, and updates on state and federal funding to help inform local planning.
This webinar explores a range of creative staffing models that ensure high-quality staffing while meeting other goals, such as developing future school leaders, providing more planning and collaboration time, and expanding experience operating blended staffing models.
CREATING ENGAGING SUMMER LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES FOR HIGH-SCHOOL YOUTH
This webinar provides examples of enrichment programs that provide opportunities for high school youth to engage in real-world experiences, connect with mentors, earn income and/or school credit, and build leadership and collaboration skills.
PARTNERING WITH HIGHER EDUCATION AND PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS
Summer learning provides a unique training ground and flexible learning space for teacher preparation and pre-service teachers. This webinar provides examples of how school districts can leverage higher education partners to recruit new teachers and teachers candidates from existing teacher pipeline programs.
Many families chose not to enroll their children in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten in the 2020-21 school year for a variety of reasons, including concerns that distance learning is not well-suited for younger students. This webinar explores how summer programs can meet the needs of younger learners and their families, especially those minimally engaged in school this past year.
SUMMER PROGRAM MARKETING, ENROLLMENT, AND ENGAGEMENT
Summer attendance and outreach is always difficult, especially among underserved students, and is likely to be even more challenging after a year of distance learning. This webinar explores best practices for creatively and strategically coordinating outreach to families and students about the benefits and opportunities of participation in summer learning programs.
Researchers at Northwestern University, University of Toronto, and J-PAL at MIT conducted a meta-analysis of 96 high-quality studies on tutoring programs. These resources summarize key takeaways and outline evidence-based principles that district leaders should consider in order to bring high-quality tutoring to their communities.
Summer attendance and outreach is always difficult, especially among underserved students, and is likely to be even more challenging after a year of distance learning. Districts, schools, and their community partners need to creatively and strategically coordinate outreach to families and students about the benefits and opportunities of participation in summer learning programs.
This is the fifth webinar in Partnership for Children & Youth (PCY)’s Summer Game Plan webinar series.
